


Ain't No Big Deal, It's Innocent

by ProspertheXVIII



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Coming of Age, F/F, No Lesbians Die, Song: I Kissed a Girl (Katy Perry)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-09
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2019-05-04 09:39:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14590203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProspertheXVIII/pseuds/ProspertheXVIII
Summary: High school AU. Dela Putnam has kissed a few girls in her time, and she’s definitely liked it - not that she'd ever fully admit it to herself, or anybody else for that matter. But it never meant or amounted to a damn thing. Until the one time that it does.





	1. 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is technically speaking a side story to a much bigger high school AU in the works by myself and the lovely Veronicasanders (big thanks to her for being my beta reader and Americanism consultant) but my work ethic is terrible and I have no attention span, hence why this was done enough to post so far in advance of the main story. 
> 
> Obviously inspired in part by that lip-synch, among other things. Dela is a secondary character in the main story, but one for whom I have an enormous soft spot, so she gets her own spin-off.
> 
> Anyway - enjoy, ladies :))

_It's not what good girls do_  
_Not how they should behave_  
_My head gets so confused  
Hard to obey_

* * *

 

“ _Really_ ? What was it like?” 

“Uh...Wet. Kinda gross. He kept his eyes open the whole time, which was super weird. His breath smelled really bad and I could taste it.” Dela blushed. “Actually, I went and brushed my teeth afterwards. It was...yeah, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

Max sat on Dela’s bed with her legs crossed, her face equal parts mesmerized and scandalized as Dela recounted the tale of her first kiss with a grimace on her face. A sort of ill-fated fumble backstage at one of the first rehearsals of their sixth grade play - _Little Shop of Horrors_ , Dela making her stage debut in leopard-print skirt and blonde bouffant wig, with Willam Belli acting as the Seymour to her Audrey. Willam, who had similarly never kissed anybody, had insisted that they tried it out before they had to rehearse the scene in front of people for the first time, to avoid embarrassment - only to discover half an hour later that stage kissing was not only possible but the generally more accepted norm for twelve-year olds - or actors of any other age for that matter. 

Max and Dela were bored stiff five weeks into summer vacation, and sheltering inside where there was air conditioning; outdoors sweltering up into the hundreds. And so the weeks of dry heat had wound up being spent sleeping over at one another’s houses on alternate nights, the time being passed with endless idle chatter and popsicles, and intermittently begging Dela’s mom to take them to the swim club (a question which was usually met with ‘in a while’ and then promptly forgotten about, her mom quite rightly preoccupied with watching her baby brother.) As much as they could have lived without the suffocating heat, it was fun. It kind of felt to Dela like they were the only two people in the world that were fully real; so content with one another, killing time and gossiping about their classmates, that everybody else could have vanished overnight without her caring.

“Hold on a second - how did you know that he kept his eyes open? If it’s that weird, then why didn’t you have yours shut?”

Dela scoffed and shrugged by way of an answer, rolling her eyes as she hugged a pillow; her legs outstretched, her skirt tucked under them. Max giggled, pushing her blonde hair behind her ear, her bangs having slipped out from her black-bowed Alice band. Tall and waifish, her nearly-new jeans already practically at half-mast; Dela felt like a six-year old when sitting next to her. 

“Didn’t the two of you have to kiss again? I mean, I went to see the play, and it looked like you did.”  
  
“It’s called stage kissing. He like, put his hand on the side of my face and sorta curved it around so I kissed his thumb instead of his lips. Didn’t hate that quite as much.” Dela gave a small laugh, relishing this newfound sensation of being a font of knowledge of sorts; Max hanging off her every word. “Okay, you go. Have you ever kissed anybody?”  
  
Max shook her head. “I don’t see the point. I mean, how many boys do you know that aren’t utterly disgusting?”  
  
“...Not many.” Dela nodded, agreeing. She turned her words over and over in her head, trying to gauge whether or not it would go down badly. It was something that she had always thought about. Not  like a total obsession - just something that was barely there, and yet there enough for her to have noticed it. She concluded that maybe asking wasn’t the best idea she’d ever had - but it slipped before she managed to fully tell her mouth that it wasn’t a good idea. “...What about girls?”  
  
“Never considered it,” Max said airily, hugging her knees and rocking backwards; a moment of silence, her breath humming and whimsical. Dela cursed herself; knowing she’d screwed up, the silence terrifying her. Until… “Do you wanna try it?”  
  
“...Try what?” 

“Kissing. Y’know...Just to see what it’s like?”  
  
“Uh- yeah, sure...okay.” Dela stumbled over her words, turning to Max with her jaw hanging half-shut.  
  
“What do I do?” She turned to face her, eyes curious and serious all at once; Dela having to try and force herself to slow her heart to a normal pace.

“Uh, you…” Dela stammered. “You kinda lean in, and shut your eyes - then you open your mouth a little, and...look, I kinda don’t really know. I think it’s sorta just instinctive. But close your eyes. And keep your tongue to yourself.” 

“Okay.” Max nodded, a small smile on her face as she shuffled closer, placing her hand on Dela’s shoulder. Dela felt electricity surge through her body.

Max closed her steely eyes, leaning toward her; Dela following suit, bridging the gap between the two of them and pressing their lips together. Max’s were soft, and tasted a little of mint. Dela tried to pull herself closer; aware that this wasn’t gross like last time, it was...nice. She was enjoying it - but by the time that she had fully registered it, Max had recoiled almost violently in revulsion, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand and shaking her head.

“Nuh-uh. I didn’t like that at all.”  
  
“Why?” That was practically the only word that Dela could remember, and so naturally the only one she could think to say; mirroring Max’s mouth-wiping action and hating it, knowing that doing it was just fully solidifying that the moment was over, but terrified of her friend thinking that it was weird all the same - of her thinking that _she_ was weird. 

Max just shook her head again. “I could taste your lip gloss, and it was all sticky, and too sweet...Actually, maybe girls and boys are meant to kiss each other for a reason, even if boys are disgusting. That was too weird.” Dela only nodded, her stomach twisting with her embarrassment. “I don’t know why you suggested it, Dela - clearly there’s something wrong with you.”  
  
“I’m not the one that suggested it, I just said ‘have you considered girls?’ It’s allowed - I mean, my mom’s sister has a wife, and I’m sure they’ve kissed more than once, so-“

She shook her head again, the action carrying an ominous, dismissive sort of finality that Dela didn’t care for. “No. I don’t think it’s right.” Max shuffled away from Dela a little. “If it’s okay with you, I think I’ll stick to gross boys, thank you very much.”

And they didn’t speak about the kiss again after that. Just like Max barely spoke to Dela again; after the blonde got lulled into Violet’s bitchy little circle as practically every other skinny blonde Dela knew had been. And that winter, when Dela came back to school after a two month disappearance - a few days after her mom’s funeral - Max didn’t act as though she’d never been gone, but as though she had never been there in the first place.


	2. 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for all the love on this fic <3 Less of a crack pairing this time, and honestly I adore this chapter more than you guys know. Courtney is an absolute sweetheart (although almost anything would be an improvement on Max in that last chapter, honestly) and if it wasn’t for the fact that a) this is a side plot of a Bitney story thus keeping Court single is sort of important and b) I was having too much fun writing this fic, Dela’s lesbian awakening could easily have ended with Courtney.

_It’s not what I’m used to  
_ _Just wanna try you on  
_ _I’m curious for you  
_ _Caught my attention_

 

* * *

“Oh my god, Dela - have I ever told you how cute your butt is?”

Dela turned a little to see Courtney’s slender form leaning against the doorframe; her blonde hair tousled, her pastel pink lace pajama shorts almost peachy in the sunset. Adore’s mom had left her liquor cabinet unattended when she’d gone off with her boyfriend for the weekend, and Adore had used and abused the empty house and free alcohol that came with her absence to provide the group with their first foray into real drunkenness - Dela had questioned how exactly she planned to explain how the vodka and tequila bottles mysteriously wound up emptied and then refilled with water, but Adore had been adamant that she’d get away with it somehow.

As Dela had last seen, Laganja and Gia were rolling around like morons pretending to be completely wasted, Adore and Bianca were off in some corner of the living room chatting about everything and nothing, and Trinity had gotten bored and called her mom to pick her up half an hour ago (‘gotten bored’ and ‘gotten sick of Laganja and Gia’ being pretty  near interchangeable in this situation.) Dela had gone out for a breather, the alcohol having half gone to her head. Her steps felt uneasy, and the lawn appeared like it was spinning, but now she was pretty sure that she had all of her faculties about her - even so, she’d been standing conjugating verbs in French in her head, just to clarify that she was still capable of thinking.

“I don’t think so, no.”

“Well, it is. Your butt is cute. You’re cute.” Se grinned, half-stumbling to Dela’s side with a smile on her face. “I’m kinda tipsy. I don’t know if you noticed or not.”

“I’ll say,” Dela grinned, turning to face her as she leaned against the rail of Adore’s balcony, the light evening breeze sweeping her bangs off of her face. God, how did Courtney have this crazy ability to look like a million bucks all the time, and what gave her the damn right? She was standing there in a gorgeous little lacy pajama set, next to Dela in her three-sizes-too-big, washed-about-four-too-many-times _Wicked_ shirt and bright turquoise leggings - she felt like she looked like somebody’s mom. Courtney smiled, pushing her hair back and stepping a little closer to her so that they stood not quite half a foot apart. “What are you doing out here?”

Courtney shrugged. “I wanted some fresh air. It’s kinda boring in there - Adore and her new best friend are off somewhere having some dumb private conversation - apparently I’m chopped liver nowadays, because neither of them seem to still care that I exist. Y’know, I almost preferred it when Adore couldn’t stand Bianca, because I feel like I just get pushed to the side - as much as I love B, I miss my friend, y’know?”

“I’ll accept partial responsibility in that.” Dela grimaced. “It was me that invited Bianca to join us.”

“Well, I can’t say I’m that mad about it, but still…” Courtney sighed a little, looking a little distant. “Anyway, Team Too Much are being morons, and Trinity fucked off, so I’m all on my own.” She paused. “What about you?”

“Same reason. I kinda just wanted to be alone with my head for a bit.” Courtney nodded at this, before inching closer again; her presence warm and soft and friendly.

“Y’know, I don’t know when I last spent time with just you, by yourself. That’s so weird, isn’t it? I mean, we’ve been friends since we were eight and I can’t think when I last had a proper conversation with just the two of us.”

“Yeah, that’s kinda weird.” Dela smiled a little, Courtney’s words repeating like a broken cassette in her head. _Of course she doesn’t actually think you’re cute in that sorta way, you big dumb dyke - she’s drunk, she’s straight, and you’re…you._ Dela winced, realizing that her internal monologue had just insulted her, and hating it. Did she really think that she was a dyke? Surely, if her subconscious was calling her one. But then again, surely not. She grimaced, repressing it. _Je finirais, tu finirais, il-elle-on finirait, nous finirons…_

“I really like you, Dela,” Courtney mused, leaning against the rail with her and placing her hand atop Dela’s. She had that gorgeous airy I-don’t-give-a-shit smile on her face, and it made Dela want to die in the best possible way. “You’re really pretty. I’m surprised that you don’t have a boyfriend yet, actually.”

“I mean, I’m not that interested in having one. They seem like a lot of work.”

“Hmm.” Courtney smirked at this. “Y’know, you could get any boy you wanted, if you tried. All the guys I know like you. I think Robbie Turner would literally let you snap his neck if you asked him.”

“W-what?” Dela stammered, half-confused by the remark, and half-startled at the thought that any boy would ever crush on her. The thought itself was so foreign - and it made her uncomfortable on a level that she couldn’t quite articulate.

“He’s got a really big crush on you. Not like he’s ever told me. But I just get a vibe from him, y’know? Like, the way he looks at you.”

“I never noticed.”

“Really?” Courtney giggled, before turning to her. “Don’t worry. Boys aren’t that great. Girls are way better I think.”

“…Me too. I think. Maybe. I’m not sure yet.” Dela stumbled over her words, flustered and embarrassed. _Vous finirez, ils-elles finirent…_

Courtney remained silent, and gave another pert smile. She turned to Dela, stroking her hand up the brunette’s forearm. Dela felt her skin prickle, her insides doing somersaults. And before she really knew what was happening, Courtney had cupped her face in her free hand and pressed her own lips against Dela’s; her lipgloss sticky and sugary, her soft mouth warm against Dela’s as her pointed tongue pressed to her lips. Dela tentatively opened her mouth to her, Courtney’s hand reaching down to cup her butt; everything about this feeling so utterly wrong, and yet so, so right at the same time-

“I- sorry, I think I heard somebody say my name.” Dela broke away, flustered and overwhelmed; her knowledge of French having disappeared down the drain and her lip trembling. Courtney stood with a question on the end of her tongue, unable to voice it before Dela strode away, back into the house - back into the room full of her friends, where she could go back to pretending to be normal. Sure, feigning interest whilst playing ‘Fuck, Marry, Kill’ was taxing, but at least it was predictable - at least it was safe. There was something about the Shakespearean fantasy on the balcony with Courtney that felt too sweet to be real, and too dangerous to be sensible, and she had to go.

And Courtney, bless her soul, never mentioned a word of it to another person. Dela woke up the next morning with her stomach twisting with nerves, so convinced that Courtney would have vented to Bianca, or worse still Adore, and Courtney would have said those fateful words of ‘I think Dela might be gay’ - then everybody would realize what a freak she was, and there she’d be again, alone and friendless and miserable. But when Dela was the first one up the next morning, in the queen bed she’d shared with Bianca and Courtney the night before - Courtney had been perhaps a little too close for comfort to Bianca, one arm around the brunette’s shoulders. Dela had decided to just not question this, - she shrugged off the writhing fear, and moved along like she hadn’t just admitted a secret to somebody that she was sure she’d carry to her grave; taking over Adore’s kitchen and making everybody pancakes. The others were woken up by Adore screaming about half an hour later - Laganja’s performance the night before had been less acting than they’d realized, and in her inebriated state, she hadn’t quite made it to the bathroom on time at some stage during the night; Adore and Gia waking up either side of her ominously wet and absolutely furious.

And after Dela had bundled the sheets from Adore’s room into the washer, as they all sat round the table - Laganja still flushed bright red with embarrassment, wearing a borrowed pair of Bianca’s sweatpants - Courtney smiled and laughed as Gia fell asleep face-down on her plate, and as Adore mistakenly drank from the maple syrup bottle, and chatted lightheartedly with Dela just like nothing had happened at all between them the night before. Dela watched her with a ghost of a grin on her face - so glad that nothing had changed. But thinking about those lips, and the touch of her hand, and secretly wishing that everything had.


	3. 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Funnily enough this ship is my Dela-based OTP but in the AU Sharon and Jinkx are dating so I couldn't pair them for good. But I definitely wanted to include this pair. Also, like all of the characters in this AU are massive theatre kids so that's some context. Hope you enjoy darlings!

_  
_ _It felt so wrong_  
 _It felt so right_  
 _Don't mean I'm in love tonight_

“O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do. They pray; grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.”

“Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.”

“Then move not, while my prayer’s effect I take- oh fuck, sorry.”

“Girls, I hate to break it to you, but the two of you are star-crossed lovers; you need to at least pretend to actually like each other.” Ms. Shupack lowered her glasses, looking scathingly at the two girls on the stage from her position in the front row of the auditorium. Half the summer gone already to this dumb extracurricular show thing, two weeks til the first performance, and it was thus far mostly a total disaster. First time that they had attempted Shakespeare, and it was looking like it would be the last - maybe that was just karma for forcing a bunch of musical-obsessed sixteen-year olds into doing classical theatre. She stared up from her copy of the script as Jinkx stumbled over her line; the ginger sat just facing Dela and blushing almost scarlet. “Okay, you technically got the line right, if we just try and keep our language clean in the performance, okay? Now just move along - Romeo, I believe you were about to kiss Juliet for the first time.”

“Ms. Shupack, I kinda don’t-“

“Bull, Jinkx - you spend enough of your life with your face suctioned onto Sharon’s in school, you’ve kissed girls before. Come on.”

“Sharon isn’t a dumb hetero,” she said pointedly. Her choice of words made Dela squirm. Not that Jinkx was to know, and she planned to keep it that way, but still.

“It shouldn’t matter,” Courtney - or rather for the purposes, Lady Capulet - said from the wings; having been play-swordfighting with Bianca (Lady Montague) with the epeés that Willam and Bob had left lying around, until the conversation had piqued her interest. “Jinkxy, you of all people should know how shitty people passing comment on your sexuality is. It’s just acting - if Willam can kiss girls, then you can get over yourself enough to do it with somebody who’s at least the gender that you’re interested in.”

“Oh, now look who’s talking.” Jinkx scoffed. Despite herself, the girl was flushed scarlet and flustered beyond a state that Dela had ever seen her in, scoffing and huffing with every other breath.

“This isn’t TV, she can hear you.” Bianca curled her lip. “Stop reading too much into this and make out with the prissy straight white girl.”

“Thanks a lot.” Dela rolled her eyes, Bianca’s comment raising something of a smile. Even with the straightness presumption that seemed to follow her everywhere. Surely to hell it would just be more painless to come out already? But then again, ‘coming out’ would be a touch difficult given that she didn’t really know what it was that she was coming out _as_ yet. ‘I like girls’ sounded a bit vague and pathetic, and yet ‘lesbian’ was just...wrong. It felt too boyish, too foreign. Too anti-Dela.

“You know it comes from a place of love.” Bianca smirked.

“Jinkx, we’re getting old waiting, - I don’t see what your issue is here.” Ms. Shupack rolled her eyes. By way of flippant response, Jinkx put a hand on the back of Dela’s head almost forcefully; pulling her into a kiss with a kind of pissed-off fervor, her eyes squeezed shut and lips pressing against Dela’s so hard that it almost hurt.

Dela was taken aback to say the least - her breath stopping, brows raised in confusion and shock as Jinkx forced her tongue between her lips, again almost inflicting physical pain. Dela squirmed away from her grasp, unsure of what else exactly she was supposed to do. Getting the hint, Jinkx pulled away, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand aggressively, a scowl on her face.

“There. Happy?”

“...I meant stage kiss, but each to their own I guess.” Ms. Shupack dropped the script, face-palming. “Okay, we can fix that shitshow later on - somebody go find the boys, I want to go over Tybalt’s death before I put my head through a wall.”

“I’ll go.” Jinkx got to her feet, almost stomping off the stage and into the wings - Dela left sitting confused and concerned.

“I know they say don’t work with kids or animals - I’m voting add teenage girls to that list. Dela, for what it’s worth, you did fine. I dunno what’s got into Jinkx today,” Ms Shupack said to the brunette as she stood up, as soon as Jinkx was out of earshot. Dela walked into the wings, where Courtney and Bianca were waiting - Courtney shuffling to the side on the cabinet the two were perched on to let Dela sit down.

“God - what on Earth just happened?” Dela grimaced a little, her face still uneasy.

“Your guess is as good as mine.” Bianca gave a heavy sigh. “I...Sharon was watching from the other wing, which I don’t think helped Jinkx’s nerves much. She’s just...weird. I mean, I still think that probably qualified as sexual assault.”

“No kidding. I...what was all that about not wanting to kiss me because I’m straight? It’s just a show, she’s done it with other people before - she’s done it with you.” She gestured to Bianca. “I mean…” Dela trailed off, at a loss for words.

“Don’t take it to heart, Dela. I’m sure she’s just having an off day or something.” Courtney gave a tiny smile; Bianca standing up and leaving, muttering something about needing to pee. “I...Dela, Sharon was standing there the whole time watching, looking at you like she wanted to kill you. I don’t know if that’s anything to you, but…”

Dela grimaced, remaining silent. Great. Just what she needed. Jinkx was her friend for crying out loud, and now she was apparently just a ‘dumb hetero’ to her, and Public Enemy No. 1 to her girlfriend.

“Listen, D - this doesn’t leave this room, but Jinkx fancies the pants off of you. She told me at Bob’s birthday party a few months ago.”  
  
“ _What_?” Dela looked a little taken aback at this, brows furrowing. Courtney gave a tight-lipped smile.

“Yeah. She was totally shitfaced, so I don’t know if she remembers that I know. Apparently she’s had a crush on you since the eighth grade, but she thinks you like boys, and she hates you for it.”

“I- why?” Dela was still almost confused by how that was even a possibility. For some reason she had never thought herself to be _crushable_ . She didn’t know what it was, or why. Maybe something about how little she actually liked herself. Perhaps it was the being teased since she was little for being fat - which she didn’t believe was _particularly_ true, but it was the flaw that Violet had chosen to pick on her for when they were five, and had just continued to do so for the last eleven years, so the notion had ingrained itself somewhat. Or for being just a bit of a general oddball - whilst maybe not describable as entirely ‘weird’ more than a few behaviors which Dela indulged in, or the manners in which she chose to present herself could definitely be defined as ‘quirky’ in anybody’s personal dictionary. Hell, even if she was _that_ pretty - which she was fairly convinced she wasn’t - she had no idea how anybody would ever want to have anything to do with her in that way.

Of course, everybody has a more intimate knowledge of themself than anybody else will ever have of them. And maybe Jinkx, and Robbie, and Thomas White - the boy with whom she’d had a few crappy dates with at the start of the year, culminating in her storming out of his house at midnight after an argument and calling her dad in tears to come and pick her up - and Dan Donigan - who she had come within an inch of losing her virginity to at Gia’s birthday party, but had chickened out at the last gasp - and the other people who allegedly wanted her in some way, and even Courtney to a degree, just didn’t see the ugly sides of herself that she was so familiar with.

They didn’t know that she was obsessive to the point of ridiculousness about checking every lock in her house about five times before she went to bed, or that she had once shut herself in the bathroom and cried for ten minutes over getting 87% in a test because she was convinced that she could have done better. They didn’t know that she slept with whatever script she was working with under her pillow every night, because she was convinced that if she didn’t, she would forget all of her lines. All of that, and so much more that she couldn’t even list, and she was sure that if they knew about any of it, then they wouldn’t want a thing to do with her.

“I mean, I can’t tell you why because I’m not her.” Courtney’s voice snapped her out of her train of thought; Dela hugging her knees and frowning. “You okay, Dela?”

She nodded a little, before sighing; glancing up at the blonde. “Courtney, you haven’t said anything about...y’know, to anyone - have you?”

Courtney looked at her with her head to the side. “Why, do you want me to tell her?”

“ _No_!” Dela squirmed at this. Courtney gave a tiny smile - half-amused by it, but still sensing Dela’s discomfort.

“It’s fine, hon. I’m not gonna say a thing if you don’t want me to. Besides - you really think I’d want people knowing that I made out with _you_?”

Dela half-assedly punched her in the arm, laughing. “Two minutes ago, everybody you know has a crush on me. Pick your story and stick to it!”

And Jinkx Snapchatted her that night with an apology for her stupid tantrum. As expected, all the prattle that Bianca had pointed out already - Sharon was watching, it felt awkward, you’re my friend and I’ve known you for so long that it’s weird, all that jazz. Dela had opened the message half-expecting that it would be some kind of proclamation of undying love, and breathed a sigh of relief when it wasn’t. She wasn’t ready to deal with that shit.

And the performance had gone down more-or-less without a hitch, the two of them never properly locking lips again, and every show being completed without Dela fucking up one line. Clearly she was onto something with her script-based superstition, because she couldn’t remember a point where it hadn’t worked.

And when she had spent most of Joslyn’s birthday party making out with Matthew Sanderson in the bathroom, Courtney had questioned her about what this ‘DIY conversion therapy’ crap she seemed to be pulling was all about. She had shrugged, and told her it was probably easier than coming out.

 


End file.
